I was told by a friend that their is a document that I can create what she called a state of the family letter of a town to get family information. Does this sound familiar and how to go about creating this?

I believe this is what you are asking for. You write the comune and if you are lucky they will take the time to do this. Of course you have to give them specific information. I have written many comunes for this and Sambuca was the only one to respond, and they did an excellent job.